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# PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
Singapore has successfully made itself a garden city. It gives me the following impressions:
streets are abound with well maintained trees;
colourful landscape plantings are found along major roads;
very high ratio of vegetation cover on urban open spaces as well as on footbridges and viaducts; and
very high ratio of park land provided - 8m2/person (the ratio in Hong Kong is 2m2/person).
We consider that such achievements can be attributed to the following factors:
the adoption of "Making Singapore a Garden City" as a national policy (by contrast, the HKSAR Government does not have any relevant policy and objective);
the establishment of special task forces to formulate greening strategies and implement the relevant work;
the development of correct and effective “greening” technologies and measures; and
the existence of town planning and transport policies favourable for greening.
These four factors are detailed below:
(1) Greening Policies in Singapore
The Singapore government puts much emphasis on greening and has adopted the policy of “Making Singapore a Garden City" since the early 60s. To accomplish this mission, special task forces were set up in an early stage to formulate greening policies and guiding principles for building a garden city. These task forces are re-organized regularly to improve and increase efficiency. In addition, the relevant legislation (i.e. Tree Conservation Areas in the Parks and Trees Act) was enacted to conserve trees. The Act provides that:
tree conservation areas should be designated;
trees with trunk diameter greater than 1.5 metres shall be preserved; and
submission of a tree survey report is a prerequisite for site development applications.
At present, all national parks, nature reserve, parks and open spaces in Singapore are under the jurisdiction of the National Parks Board (NPB).
(2) (i) The Singapore National Parks Board (NPB)
Before July 1996, NPB was responsible for developing, managing and promoting national parks and nature reserves for the four grand objectives, namely recreation, conservation, research and education. At that time, all the city greening work
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